use. He was Captain Le Gaire's
son by a slave mother. Bell told me later that the mother was sent back
into the fields, and died as a result. That would account for the hate
the boy felt against the father."

"How--how old was he?" her trembling lips white.

"Not over eighteen."

Billie hid her face on my shoulder, sobbing silently. A moment the
surgeon stood looking down at us compassionately.

"I am going to have both you and your sergeant taken up stairs," he said
at last. "Come, Miss Hardy, you have no right to break down now."

CHAPTER XXXVIII

THE COMING OF THE NIGHT

It was sundown, and silent without, except for voices and the constant
movement of men. The din of battle, the roar of guns, had ceased, and
everywhere gleamed the light of fires where the tired commands rested.
The house stood, shattered but stanch, great gaping holes in its side,
the front a mere wreck, the lower rooms in disorder, with windows
smashed, and pools of hardening blood staining the floors. Appearing
from without a ruin, it yet afforded shelter to the wounded.

I had had my own wounds washed and cared for. They were numerous enough
and painful--an ugly slash in the side, a broken rib, the crease of a
bullet across the temple, and a shoulder crushed by a terrific blow,
together with minor bruises from head to heels--and yet none to be
considered serious. They had carried me up the shattered stairs to her
room, and I lay there bolstered up by soft pillows, and between clean
sheets, my eyes, feverish and wide-awake, seeking out the many little
things belonging to her scattered about, ever reminded of what had
occurred, and why I was there, by my own ragged, stained uniform left
lying upon a chair. I could look far away out of the northern window
from where I rested, could see the black specks of moving columns of
troops beyond the orchard, the vista extending as far as the log church,
including a glimpse of the white pike. The faint odor of near-by
camp-fires reached my nostrils, and the murmur of voices was wafted to
me on the slight breeze. Some lad was singing not far away, although the
words could not be distinguished, and from the farther distance sounded
clearly a cavalry bugle. I could hardly realize, hardly comprehend what
it all meant. It hurt me to move, and the fever made me half delirious.
I fingered the soft, white sheets almost with awe, and the pillows
seemed hot and smothering. Every apartment in the house held